Shawn Li's RV-7 Construction Log

11-29-2013: 2 hrs

I did the final touch on the spinner backplate cutout, then primed and riveted the two pieces.  Took me quite a while to understand how the oil is circulating within engine, prop govener, and prop. Then I removed the front crankshaft plug by punching a hole in it, then hammer a rivet punch into the hole, and pried the plug off. Some oil flowed out, good thing is the flow is slow so it didn't make too much mess.

Since I took the ring gear out for removing the plug, and I didn't mark the ring gear before removal. So I worried about messing up the clocking of the ring gear. Good thing is that there is "O" stamp on the ring gear, and there is "O" mark on one of the crankshaft flange holes. The marked hole is slightly larger than the rest of the holes so there is no way you can mess up the ring gear clocking. Prop clocking is a different issue. I spent some time reading about the prop clocking, the consensus is that engine doesn't care the prop clocking, but certain clocking effect more airframe vibration. What I did is to rotate the crankshaft to align the TC#1 mark on the front face of ring gear at 12 o'clock position, then installed the prop at about 1-7 o'clock position. Hope I will be lucky enough that don't have to re-clock it. 

PS (12/2/13): I just realized by reading a thread in VAF that one of the bolt holes on prop is not counterbored, so it can only fit to one of the two positions (180 degree apart) that the crank flange bushing is not extruded out (the one with "O" mark, position F according to Lycoming service manul 1098H. or position C). I happened to installed the prop in a way that the uncounterbored hole is aligned with Position F which has a slightly larger bushing diameter, which is considered as correct installation